Lion in the Valley - Elizabeth Peters [12]
“Like all men, Emerson, you have no sense of style. I admit the gown was a trifle extreme, but it was lovely. I must ask Miss Debenham—”
Emerson interrupted my speech by planting his lips firmly on mine, removing them to murmur, “You require no such artificial adornments, Peabody. You never look lovelier to me than in your working trousers and shirtwaist, with a strip of sunburn across your nose and your hair straggling out of its net. No, allow me to revise that. You are even lovelier when you are not wearing—”
I placed my hand over his mouth to prevent the completion of the sentence, for I felt again the tingling that preceded Ramses’ advent. Sure enough, I heard the familiar voice: “May I come in now, Papa?”
“Yes, come in,” I replied, stepping away from Emerson.
“I wished to ask, Mama, what I should wear,” said Ramses.
“I had intended you should wear your black velvet suit.”
Ramses’ countenance, which seldom displayed emotion of any kind, darkened visibly. The wearing of the black velvet suit was one of the few things that stirred him to open rebellion. I could not imagine why the boy felt so strongly about it; with its pretty lace collar and ruffled shirt, it was a perfectly appropriate costume for a lad his age. (Though I must admit it did not suit Ramses’ swarthy, aquiline face and black curls as it would have done had his coloring been more typically English.)
I was forced to give way on this occasion, since the havoc that would have been wreaked on black velvet by an ascent of the pyramid would ruin the suit. A thoughtful expression crossed Ramses’ face when I expressed this opinion, but he did not, as I had half-expected, offer to wear the suit after all.
•
Two
•
Mena House, at the foot of the Giza plateau, had been open only a few years, but its exceptional location had made it one of the most popular hotels in the environs of Cairo. It had been designed to look like an old English manor house on the outside, but the Oriental style prevailed within. A web of soft lights, suspended from the high domed ceiling of the dining salon, created an aura of mystery and magic. Mr. and Mrs. Locke, the owners, had purchased a number of the beautiful antique mashrabiya screens, which added appreciably to the charm of the room.
We were the only guests not in full evening dress, and several people stared rudely as we were escorted to our table by Mr. Locke himself. “Good Gad, how people gape,” Emerson remarked. “I don’t know what has happened to good old-fashioned manners. One would think there was something peculiar about our appearance.”
“You and Mrs. Emerson are well known,” Mr. Locke said tactfully. “People always stare at celebrities.”
“Ha,” said Emerson. “No doubt you are right, Locke. But it is still bad manners.”
I had hoped we might encounter some of our archaeological friends, but I saw no one we knew. Not until I was studying the menu in order to select a sweet for Ramses did I hear a diffident voice murmur my name. I looked up to see a familiar face smiling down at me. It was young Howard Carter; he was happy to accept my invitation to join us for coffee. After greeting Ramses and paying his respectful homage to Emerson, he explained that he had come to Cairo on business and had taken the opportunity to run out to Giza in order to enjoy the moonlight over the pyramids.
“Don’t tell Professor Naville,” he added, with his amiable grin. “I am supposed to be working.”
“Are you still at Thebes with Naville?” I asked. “I thought the excavations at Hatasu’s temple were finished.”
“The excavations, yes. But we have a good deal of recording and restoring yet to do.”
“I can well believe that,” said Emerson. “By the time Naville finishes an excavation, it would require a psychic to make sense of the mess.”
“You sound like my old mentor Petrie,” said Carter with a smile.
From the chagrin on Emerson’s face I could see he had forgotten the feud between Naville and Petrie. Emerson had been in a quandary as to which side to take (it